


the distance causes only silence

by ModernMyth



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, F/M, MCU compliant, Past Relationship(s), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 08:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16530668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernMyth/pseuds/ModernMyth
Summary: The Soldier showed me kindness in a world where there was none. And I never forgot it. Not even after they made him forget me.Natasha visits Clint after SHIELD falls.





	the distance causes only silence

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set immediately after the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It's predominantly Natasha and Clint friendship but definitely heavy on the Bucky/Nat, as well. Title from 'If You Want Me' from Once. This is the first one of my writing projects I've been able to finish in a while, so go me.

It’s late, very late when Natasha knocks lightly on the Barton’s front door. She’s not worried; Clint won’t be asleep, and she’s being discreet enough not to wake the others - Laura and the kids have always slept heavy. It has only been a few days since she spilled SHIELD’s secrets for the world to read. Natasha’s barely slept since, and she has no doubt Clint is experiencing the same guilt as she - maybe even more so. Clint had been the one to recruit her to SHIELD, convinced her she was going on the straight and narrow and finally doing some _good_. She doesn’t blame him, but she’s got no doubt he’s blaming himself.

Natasha knocks twice, light again, in rapid succession, and clears her throat when she hears the tell-tale sign of footsteps nearing the door.

“It’s me, Barton.”

A long moment passes before he carefully opens the door, bow at the ready. Clint lets out a sharp breath. “Nat?”

There are dark circles under his eyes and stubble growing on his cheeks. He looks about as good as she’d expected, she supposes, which is to say - not very. Natasha gives Clint a long, searching look. Then she takes a step forward and wraps her arms around his torso, pulling him into a tight embrace.

Clint lets out a choked sound, clearly surprised by the gesture. Natasha knows she’s not one to show physical affection - even _this_ is a bit much, for them, and Clint is one on the short list of people for which she’s ever allowed herself to show genuine affection. Natasha is not exactly known as a hugger. But, she supposes, they can probably both use some family right now.

After a long moment, Clint ushers her inside. They walk to the kitchen in comfortable silence. He opens one of the top cabinets and grabs a large, half-full bottle of Stoli. Instead of waiting for him to make her a drink, she immediately snags the bottle from him, tosses a few ice cubes into a glass, and pours it heavy handedly full of vodka. Before she takes a sip, Natasha takes a pull directly from the bottle of Stoli and passes the bottle to Clint.

He shakes his head at her and snorts, but there’s no real humor behind it. She watches him pour himself a drink, adding a splash of club soda to his, and they sit down at the kitchen table opposite each other, bottle of vodka between the two of them.

Natasha runs a thumb along the rim of her glass. “Laura’s sleeping, I assume?”

Clint nods. “She stayed up with me for a while, but she needs the rest. Lila’s been keeping her up lately.”

She quirks her lips. “Well, I’m glad one of us can get a little sleep right now.”

They’re both silent for a long moment, and Natasha takes a sip of her drink.

Clint finally breaks the silence. “Nat…”

Her spine straightens.

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened?”

She huffs a laugh. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about with Fury?”

Natasha takes a breath. “Right. Look, Barton, I’m serious - this one has got to stay between you and me, but - Fury is alive.”

Clint sets down his drink, looking a strange combination of pissed off and unsurprised.

“I’m sorry,” she elaborates after a minute, and they both know she is not one to apologize, so this moment is one of significance. “But I couldn’t exactly tell you over the phone, and I didn’t have enough time or access to use our old system. Nick _needs_ people to think he’s dead.” She shakes her head. “Clint, I watched him die right in front of me. I watched him flatline. I thought he was dead. I cried over his lifeless body for fifteen minutes. He was _gone_ , but it turns out he didn’t trust me enough to let me in on the truth.”  

Natasha finishes off her drink and pours herself another.

Clint frowns. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

He gives her a sympathetic smile. “I’m still sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. I guess after I got shot, they decided I probably wasn’t working with the Winter Soldier.”

Clint spluttered on his drink, and in just about any other context, she knows she’d find it amusing, make immediate fun of him. But not today.

“Nat -  _shot?_ What the fuck? Are you okay? Where - who - how the fuck-”

She unzips her hoodie and pulls the strap of her tank top to the side, flashing her bandaged shoulder.

Clint speaks again, voice tense. “Wait. Did you just say the Winter Soldier?”

“I was wondering when you’d get to that part.”

“Is this the first time you’ve seen him since Odessa?”

Natasha nods.

“And _he’s_ the one who tried to kill Fury?”

“And did a pretty damn good job of it, too,” Natasha acknowledged.

“Tell me you killed the motherfucker.”

Natasha shakes her head.

“D’you need me out there with you? Because we can track the sonofabitch down together, and I swear to -”

“No,” Natasha interjected. “No, it’s...it’s more complicated than that.”

Clint quirks a brow. “How exactly?”

She sighs. “Because before that man became the Winter Soldier that _I_ knew, he was once a very different kind of soldier. One named Bucky Barnes.”

“The-” he pauses, staring at her with disbelief. “Howling Commando, Nazi-fighting, best friend and partner of one Captain America - that’s the Bucky Barnes we’re discussing?”

“The one and only.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Yep.” Natasha pops the ‘p’ with a loud flourish.

He continues his questioning. “And how exactly did this guy become an international assassin?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly there, but - you know the story already, don’t you? Asset gets taken in and brainwashed and becomes someone they don’t recognize; then when they start to recognize themselves, they get their minds wiped again. You know. Tale as old as time, and all that." 

“Right. Your usual Disney classic. How about the part where he’s in his nineties?”

“They’ve been keeping him on ice. Cryogenesis. In combination with some kind of super soldier serum. He doesn’t a look a day over thirty.”

Clint lets out a low whistle. “If all of us should be so lucky.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Steve’s going after him.”

“Of course he is,” Clint sighs. “Alone?”

She shakes her head. “Not quite. He’s got backup. New guy, you’ll like him. Vet named Sam Wilson. He was one of the winged para-rescues from the Khalid Khandil mission. He’s a good guy. Saved our lives. He’ll have Cap’s back. I’m more worried Steve is going to lose himself in the search. Looking for the Winter Soldier brings nothing but pain and dead ends.”

Clint narrows his eyes, looking at her a little too perceptively. “You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience.”

Natasha meets his gaze after a long moment, not yet speaking. She uses her fingernail to pick at a groove in the wooden table.

“I gave Steve my file on the Winter Soldier. But I didn’t tell him everything.”

“Okay…” Clint says slowly, patiently, waiting for her to continue.

Her voice isn’t quite steady when she speaks. “I gave Rogers everything relevant. Last known whereabouts, mission histories, everything I had on his handlers - anything I thought could help him track Barnes down.” She swallows. “But there are things that wouldn’t help Steve find him; things he didn’t need to know. Things no one knows but me.”

Natasha pauses to take a long drink of vodka, silently thanking Barton for not pushing her with this story.

“I knew him,” she admits eventually. “He trained me. I met him when I was a teenager; he trained us in weapons and hand to hand combat for two or three months. They put him back on the ice for a while, I think, because I didn’t see him again until after I had graduated. They started us out on ops together. Turns out we made good partners.” She allows herself the smallest of smiles.

Clint gives her a sympathetic look, and she knows that he knows before she can say a damn thing, knows exactly where this story is going, somehow. He waits for her to continue, anyway.

“He was my first love.”

He lets that sink in for a moment, then replies: “Fuck.”

“Yep,” she agrees. “We were definitely fucked.”

Clint shakes his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that ended well for either of you, huh?”

She gives him a droll look. “What gave me away?”

“The bullet wounds, for one, don’t exactly scream ‘fairytale romance.’”

“Well,” she starts, thinking about it for a moment, “Neither of them were actually kill shots, and the soldier wasn’t exactly trained to pull his punches, so I suppose there’s...that.”

“Huh.” Clint pauses. “A real soviet assassin love letter.” He reaches for the bottle of vodka and tops off both their drinks. “So...trainer to partner to lover is how the narrative goes? How’d that happen, exactly?”

Natasha purses her lips and takes a sip of her drink. “After I became a fully fledged agent, they started sending us out on missions. I can’t remember what year it was, but I think I was around twenty, maybe. The timelines are still foggy. Sometimes I think about it, and I can hear Bonnie Tyler blasting from someone’s car outside, and sometimes it’s Billie Holiday. But...tension kept building from our first mission alone together; I was always flirting shamelessly with him, and he never knew what to do with it. The Soldier wasn’t trained in interpersonal skills, more strategy and violence. I made the Winter Soldier _blush_ , can you imagine?” She almost laughs.

“He - we were out on this mission, one night, and I was still trying to prove myself as an agent and made a reckless move. It worked, but - he’d been so worried. He berated me after, once we got back to the hotel, but I knew his anger was more fear than anything, so I just...kissed him. When I think back on it now, I know I was naive. I didn’t think someone with my upbringing could maintain enough innocence or optimism to be naive, but I must’ve been, you know?”

She shakes her head. “I really thought maybe we could...run away together, get away from our handlers and just be _us_ , somehow. I was young and stupid, and he wanted me as much as I wanted him, so we started sneaking around together every time we got the chance. Sometimes it was sex, and sometimes it was just...hiding in a supply closet for five minutes of being ourselves, just...holding each other without having to pretend everything was okay, or that we were fine with what we were having to do, as assets. A lot of the time it was just...little moments. A glance, a graze of the hand, a reminder that we were both alive. That we were both...people.” Natasha takes a long drink from her glass. She hadn’t meant to share so much, but it’s _Clint_ , and he _asked_ , and _fuck_ , she really thought she would never see this man again. Her soldier.

Natasha drums her fingers on the kitchen table. “I called him my _Soldat_. That’s all he’d ever been known by; he didn’t know his name, but he told me I made him feel like a man, somehow, anyway. He was...kind. I can see it now, the man he must have been, back then, when he was Steve’s best friend. The Soldier showed me kindness in a world where there was none.” She clears her throat. “And I never forgot it. Not even after they made him forget _me_.”

She tosses back the rest of her drink and meets Clint’s eyes.

He merely stares at her for a long moment. “Jesus, Nat. That’s...that’s one hell of a story.”

“Yep,” she agrees in a quiet voice. “You can probably imagine why I’ve never chosen to tell it before.”

He nods. “Yeah. Think you’ll ever tell Rogers?”

Natasha purses her lips. “I don’t know. The Sol-” she cuts herself off and shakes her head. “Barnes clearly doesn’t remember me. What would be the point? I’m not sure it would make Steve feel any better to know that on top of decades of brainwashing and torture, he managed to experience love and loss, too. Knowing the Soldier was even capable of that may make the matter more complicated.”

“Hm,” Clint narrows his eyes. “And if Barnes remembers you?”

“Seems pretty unlikely. Even _I_ don’t have all my memories back, and I’ve had a lot less people fucking with my head.”

“But if Rogers _does_ manage to track Barnes down and get him the help he needs?”

“Well, then I’ll have some explaining to do. But frankly, I’d rather take my chances and burn that bridge if I come to it.”

Clint tilts his head. “I don’t think that’s the expression.”

She smirks. “Agree to disagree.”

They sit in contemplative silence for a few minutes, until Clint lets out a loud yawn.

“You should get some sleep, old man,” Natasha teases, though they can both tell her heart isn’t quite in it.

He gives her a sad smile. “Seems pretty unlikely. You wanna stay up all night and have an action movie marathon? Make fun of the chase scenes and fight choreography?”

The returning smile on Natasha’s face is genuine this time, if not a little small.

“Sounds good,” she agrees gratefully.

Then she grabs his hand, along with the bottle of Stoli, and drags Clint over to the couch in search of the remote.

 

 


End file.
